Rootless
by iceybae
Summary: Highschool AU redorb story. May and Maxie form a unique bond through unique situations, but reoccurring nightmares warn of a future that contains no serenity. Warnings and omens portray pretty fires.
1. Glossophobia

Hi! This is my first upload here, and also one of my first semi long term multi-chapter fics (I mostly write one-shot drabbles). I hope it intrigues some of you? c:

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**Glossophobia**

The fear of public speaking or speaking in general

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"Holy shit. Ugh."

May awoke with a start at the blaring sound of her alarm clock. Slowly sitting up and blinking the sleep out of her eyes, the teenage girl shut off the digital alarm clock by reflex. _Five more hours, please. _She blearily thought. It was a mistake to have been up pretty late talking to Brendan over the phone. _Man,_ could he hold an interesting conversation. She forced herself out of bed, taking a quick shower and managing to get herself dressed.

A half hour later, she was walking into her high school building, feeling like the physical equivalent of death, a travel mug of coffee clutched tightly in her hand as if it were life support. In a way, it was. May trudged to her locker, sliding her binders out of her backpack and shoving what she didn't need black inside. Glancing to the side, she noticed Brendan approaching her. He notably looked like death as well. _Good,_ she thought, not particularly wanting to be the only one feeling so shitty today.

"Hey, May," Brendan puffed once he got within earshot, binders already in tow. "I'm starting to regret letting you talk to me all night." With that, he yawned, giving her a good humored glower.

"You know, I kinda remember _you_ doing a decent amount of talking last night too." And with that, she clicked her locker closed, starting off down the hallway in the direction of her first class. She and Brendan had the same homeroom, so they typically went there together. Before they got too far, though, she heard a male voice call her name. May flinched slightly as a response. With the amount of sleep she got, the teenager didn't exactly feel up to doing anything aside from just trudging through classes today.

And yet, she turned to face whoever had called after her, and was pleasantly met with the face of Maxie, even if he was wearing one of those stupid sweaters he usually donned. They'd never been _close_ but he shared a few classes with her and despite his ridiculous obsession with science, Maxie was actually a pretty cool guy. If just a little bit stuck up. _More like with a little bit of a stick in the butt,_ May observed with secret amusement.

"Oh, mornin'," She tried not to yawn. She failed, and shared a vague look of irritance with Brendan, who had come to stand next to her. The red haired boy took note of both of their appearances immediately, and pushed his glasses a bit higher up on the bridge of his nose.

"You two look…" He began awkwardly, arching one eyebrow.

"-Like shit?" May finished, taking a sip of her coffee. "Yeah, we kinda spent the whole night talking about _literally nothing._" She gave her friend a nod, narrowing her eyes good naturedly. He pretended to scowl.

"At least I had stuff to say, you were the one talking about that literal nothingness!" Brendan said with a look of feigned hurt now. "I cannot believe you would stab me in the back. And in front of this innocent young man here!" Moving quickly, he grasped Maxie's shoulders, much to the dislike of the taller boy.

"Us guys need to stick together in these trying times, otherwise evil people like _her_," Maxie glowered at him, silent as Brendan pointed a finger at May. "Are gonna take advantage of our innocence!"

"I sincerely doubt that." Maxie promptly shoved accusing boy off. Amusement bubbled inside May, and she sidestepped the two, attempting not to laugh at Brendan's look of pretend astonishment. The 'astonished' boy himself quickly gathered himself and followed after her, leaving the slightly frazzled red head to stare after the pair as if he wanted to say something.

_Oh well, if he had anything important to tell me, he would've told me. _But she didn't really care. Classes were going to start in a minute and she really didn't want to be late, May was tired enough as it is. Once they'd reached their first class, they plopped down tiredly in their designated seats, both too exhausted to really socialize today.

The day went by smoothly enough, but she was just _so tired. _When lunch finally came around, May practically dropped her tray onto the table as she slid in next to Brendan, stifling yet another yawn. Neither were very talkative today, and when their friend Wally sat down at their table, he frowned a bit. Even though Wally was a few grades below them, a freshman, they still talked to him. May had to admit, he was pretty cute. Sometimes she felt responsible for how well he did in school.

"Did you guys seriously stay up late again?" The freshman asked in a small voice, sounding incredulous. "I really thought you learned your lesson last time!"

"Me too," Brendan mumbled, all previous enthusiasm from the hallways earlier vanished. "I gotta admit, May," He glanced at the brunette he was referring to, who raised her head tiredly. "We really fucked up. But at least I got you caught up on the latest tech, right?" Brendan perked up slightly. She had to admit, Poketech was pretty cool these days.

"Yeah, I'm actually pretty excited to get my PokeNav, if I don't feel like stabbing this into my throat by the end of the day," She held up a fork gingerly. "I'll probably go get one later this afternoon."

"I'll register you as soon as you get it, okay?" Brendan chirped around a mouthful of food, which to May, didn't look appetizing at all. She normally brought her own lunch, but she was too tired today to bother. Wally just looked generally concerned.

"Okay. Sure." Personally, the girl felt like smashing her face into a wall. They continued their reign of silence, until she could have sworn she saw Maxie staring at her from a few tables away. She signed it off as her tiredness before she glanced sideways and saw him staring _again_. Almost immediately he looked away, and resumed whatever he was talking about to the person sitting in front of him. On a normal day, she would have gotten up and attempted to talk to the nerd king himself, but today was just not her day.

This went on and on until lunch was dismissed, and the trio had to break apart at this time of day. Of course she didn't have any classes with Wally, he was a _freshman_, but she and Brendan only had first block together. May had the last class of the day with Maxie, and she would have to remind herself to ask why the fuck he was staring at her like a magikarp today. _Arceus, I really don't want to deal with this crap today._ The senior groaned inwardly as she made her way into her third block classroom, and found herself having a difficult time paying attention.

All she could think about was sleep. Sleep was literally all that mattered and maybe getting her awkward classmate to not stare at her during lunch. Yeah, that was a good plan. Then when she got home, she'd do her homework, get that PokeNav, and go to sleep. Nothing was going to stop her from achieving that ultimate goal.

In the end, she did forget about asking Maxie why he was acting up. He was acting pretty normal in class, and May was just so fucking tired. Finally, when class was over, she got to go home. The school wasn't very far from her house, so she usually just walked there. Exceedingly tired, she dragged herself up the stairs after a brief greeting with her mother. May's dad was a gym leader, and sometimes didn't always come home.

"Hey, Felisha." May greeted her shinx, who her dad had brought back for her from his trip to Sinnoh. The electric type pokemon blinked in response, and did not rise up from her place on the bed. She walked over and gently rubbed behind Felisha's ears, who purred quietly, sliding her backpack off her shoulders.

She tossed her backpack next to her desk, dropping into the seat with a heavy sigh. For a moment she just sat there, her head in her hands. She had a whole packet to do for science and like, a million trigonometry problems to do from her textbook. With a heavy sigh, May opened her backpack and yanked out her books.

It wasn't long before she fell asleep at her desk, she'd only managed to break a small dent in her math homework. It was Friday, but she really preferred to get all her school work done before the weekend. That way she'd have more time to sleep. May managed to get about two hours of sleep before she felt herself being nudged awake by her mother, who had her cellphone in one hand. If she wasn't so tired she would have protested, but the girl was still half asleep.

"May- Wake up! Your cellphone has been going off for the past 10 minutes, it was driving me insane," Her mother set the phone down on the desk in front of May impatiently, who was still blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "It's some boy, I have him on hold."

"Okay okay, thanks." May mumbled, picking up the phone. Her mother walked out of the room, and she resumed the call as soon as she heard the click of her door shutting. "Hello?" She found herself stifling a yawn. She was doing a lot of yawning today.

"It's me." Maxie's voice resounded from her phone speaker, it always had that sort of intensity that caught her attention. "I wanted to call about the partner project? Possibly we could work together on that…" He didn't sound unsure. This wasn't abnormal between the two, they'd occasionally done projects together before.

"Project…? Uh, yeah. Sure!" She jolted up, having forgotten there even _was_ a partner project in the first place. It didn't surprise her with how many they seemed to get. Quickly, the brunette began digging through her science binders until she found the assignment papers where she'd shoved them. "Do you want to like uh, meet up somewhere? Or we could just use email back and forth about it, I dunno." May adjusted the phone between her ear and shoulder as she paged through the rubric packet, having to stop a groan from escaping her throat when there was evidently a physical part of the project they'd have to build.

There was a pause.

"While it would be a bit easier to do it that way, I'd rather we communicate in person." She could have sworn she heard typing. "My parents will be… Out of town on an important boating trip for a while. And if we're going to be building this, I'd rather I have your input and assistance, you can come over to my house?" He finally began to sound painfully awkward, and May couldn't help but grin. Maxie never had a knack for physically building things. While he was good at writing theories and essays, he always managed to glue something to himself, to the wrong part of the project, or both.

"It's not due in like, two weeks, but I guess finishing it early would be pretty nice." May knew this was something he'd agree to, both she and Maxie had a bit of a thing for getting done ahead of time. "I'm free on Sunday, just email me your address, okay?"

"And…" More typing. "Done. When do you think you can get here?"

"I dunno, maybe around three? That should give us enough time to finish the harder stuff before it gets late and shit." She switched on her computer, a bit curious to find out where Maxie lived. They usually did projects at May's house.

"Uh, that sounds good," Maxie cleared his throat. "I'll see you then?"

"Yeah! See you then." She ended the call, setting her phone down on the desk and leaning back in her chair. In truth, Maxie was cute, but she'd never considered _dating_ him or anything, he was just a really good assignment partner and even a pretty good friend when he wasn't being stuffy. She cast Felisha a frazzled look, and the shinx blinked back at her in befuddlement. May was going to go to Maxie's house. On Sunday. Oh Arceus, this might be interesting.

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I'd really appreciate if any readers could review and leave constructive criticism or thoughts! Thanks! ;w;


	2. Nyctophobia

update**!**

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**Nyctophobia**

The fear of the dark.

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Saturday did not officially start for May until 10 in the morning. Before that, the teenager felt like she was phasing in and out of reality, whether it was waking up at 4 or 8 am. It took her a while to finally jump start her brain, finally not feeling like death as she had at last reclaimed her missing hours of sleep. Which, by the way, were villainously stolen by Brendan, and she wouldn't forget.

She shoved herself out of bed, grabbing her cell phone and checking for texts. Brendan would have slept in as much as she did, so May was unsurprised when he had left no messages. They lived on the same street, anyways. There wasn't that much of a need to text as they saw each other constantly, but it wasn't worth biking down the street just to exchange quick words. She slumped into the chair at her desk.

Dragging a brush through her hair, she switched on her computer monitor and bothered to read the address Maxie had emailed her. Apparently his house was on one of those high class private roads, and frankly, the brunette wasn't surprised in the slightest. No wonder he had such an ego for a teenage boy. She switched it back off and dragged herself downstairs, feeling quite suddenly hungry.

A half hour and an exasperated conversation with her mother about what had fucked up her sleeping pattern later, she had been fed and was ready to start the day. In her tiredness, May'd forgotten to get her PokeNav. Returning upstairs to her room, she called Felisha back into her Pokeball and suited up for a day that promised

"Bye, mom!" May called as she ran out the door, hastily stuffing her Shinx's Pokeball into her messenger bag. She tugged her bike out from its rack by her house and mounted it, ready to visit the Poke Mart. For a moment, she struggled internally about what she'd do after that, but finally a general plan formed in her head.

_Okay, first get the damn communicator, then finish your homework and see what the hell you need to make for this project exactly so you don't have to spend more time than truly necessary tomorrow_. Solid plan. And now that that was out of the way, she pedaled down the street, passing Brendan's house and turning onto the road to where the Poke Mart was.

The store itself wasn't particularly impressive, much smaller in size and selection than some of the bigger ones she'd visited in cities on training trips over the summer. Still, there was always that lightness of visiting a PokeMart that was inside her. She'd just selected a blue PokeNav (it matched her eyes) when a blaring voice sounded behind her.

"Hey! I see you got a blue one, too?" Archie. He leaned against the counter and grinned, pressing his trainer ID card onto the flat surface while an exhausted looking employee took a spot near the register on the opposite end.

"Yeah, I did," May herself slipped her card out of her purse, passing it to the cashier. Trainer ID cards were needed to buy 'trainer equipment', even though the PokeNav was basically a glorified cellphone with some extra features. "Are you going to fight me for having the same color phone?" There was a sense of easy familiarity that came with talking to Archie.

"Exactly," The employee passed May the box to her new PokeNav. "Put up your dukes, Maple." Archie leaned back, curling his hands into fists, his grin growing wider. Archie Seiller was an easygoing type of guy, well built, tan-skinned and on numerous sport teams. He had a good natured way of talking; so May naturally took well to him.

"Kay, well, I'm a bit of a boxing champion, so I'd step the hell off if you wanna live, son." This earned a hearty laugh from her counterpart, and May slipped the electronic out of it box as Archie received his own.

"Actually, though, you should register me," He ripped the box open, holding his own blue PokeNav up and activating it. "I can send you some awesome ass selfies when I go sailing tomorrow, though I could snapchat ya if you gave me your username."

"Both options promise a pretty spectacular time, I don't see why not!" A moment later and the two were on their way out of the PokeMart, and May slid her bike out of the rack.

"Hey, maybe you should come sailing with me to tomorrow night? There'll be a couple other people, drinks, all on a boat!" The tanned boy stepped gingerly in front of her bike. "You can bring Brendan, too."

For a moment, May contemplated this. It was a pretty difficult offer to refuse. A party on a boat, hot damn. But she knew Maxie'd be on her ass for a month if she bailed, and she kind of valued her grade more than she should.

"Eh.. Sorry, can't. I gotta work on a project with Maxie tomorrow at like, three. It'll take a while." She tried not to let disappointment in through her voice. But Archie only broke off into a short, funny little laugh.

"Oh Arceus, that must suck, having to work with the nerd king. Sometimes I think he's an ass on purpose," He frowned and hooked his fingers into his jeans. "Maybe you should ask Ms. Chris to let you switch partners, I know there are plenty of other stuffy kids for him to pair up with." the tall boy leaned back with a shrug.

"Besides that, you should stay away from him. I've heard of who his parents are, he's a real rich kid. I mean, real rich. Probably never worked for a thing in his life and he still has a bad attitude." May felt like her friend was under fire, and defensiveness boiled in her chest.

"Okay, hey, hold on a sec. He's actually kind of cool when he stops with that whole superior act. I don't think he means to come off as-"

"-Pompous?" Archie interjected, but it was obvious he was otherwise done. He put his hands up in surrender when he saw the scowl forming on her face. "But hey, I was just giving you advice. Guys like him are so tightly wound, eventually they snap like old rope. When you see him tomorrow, make sure he doesn't strap you to an operating table-"

This time, it was May's turn to interrupt. She promptly punched his arm. Archie jumped back, laughing slightly.

"I can take care of myself, he hardly has any muscle mass from what I can tell, I'll be fine." She hopped onto her bike, wheeling it forward a few inches with her feet.

"I expect you to send me a lot of pictures of all the mad science experiments he's done on past project partners, okay?" He walked along with her as she rolled the bicycle to the end of the store's small parking lot. This drew a smile out of her.

"Okay, okay, I promise I'll tell you if he has anything illegal. I'll call you!" May waved in farewell before quickly pedaling back up the street, an odd feeling in her stomach from the encounter. It was unlike Archie to not get along with someone. Sure, Maxie was stuck up, but that didn't warrant the aggressiveness his opposite had just shown.

_Archie said he knew his parents, maybe they did something to him? _Frowning on this thought, she rode her bike back towards home.

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The brunette rolled to a stop in front of her house, waiting. For what, she didn't know. She just waited. The early spring air felt soothing, this week was incredibly warm, and promised a blistering summer. Summer meant graduation, and graduation meant freedom. The thought of finally being able to go on a _real _journey with Felisha smothered any college or job worries she had before.

The Shinx's Pokeball warmed suddenly, as if she, too, felt May's excitement. Suddenly, a much better idea than going inside came to her, and she quickly biked past her house, past the road signs and onto Route 101, abandoning her bike once she skittered off the path. After taking a few steps into the woods she released Felisha, who stretched with an excited yawn.

The pair wandered the woods for a while, admiring the wild Pokemon before eventually settling in the grass near a small pond. Anxiety nagged at May, Archie was acting so out of character. Something had to be wrong, or something serious had to have happened. She contemplated asking Maxie about it, maybe he knew. Then again, maybe he didn't, either.

She rolled over, gently rubbing Felisha's stomach, who purred contentedly in response. The two stayed like that, and May almost fell asleep. The warm weather a combined with the calm of the afternoon was ridiculously sleep-inducing. She still had more than a few hours to kill before she'd have to be home to start project research.

_Just a short nap… A short… Nap… _

…

Fire swirled around her legs, the flames licking at her skin, but she felt no pain. Only a heavy feeling in her chest as the land around her collapsed into brittle scorched earth and rock. Horrified, May swiveled to identify where she was, steep landscape towering around her. Never had she felt so small before.

May forced her legs to break into a run, away from the fire and the destruction, the blood roaring in her ears, but a hand snatched at her wrist and dragged her backwards. Uselessly she dug her heels into the ground, but it gave way too easily.

"Let go of me! Who the hell-" The girl twisted violently around to view the owner of the hand. All she could see was a dark figure, obscured by smoke and flame. She pulled, hard, at her captured wrist and he still did not let her go, holding her prisoner in an iron grip. When the man spoke, his voice sounded like the crackling of fire.

"I won't let you go," He leaned forward, and May felt the heat of his entire body. Flaming orbs met eyes of pale blue. Fear surged through her chest and she squinted, desperately trying to figure out who this figure was. His stature was becoming eerily familiar as his voice rose. "I will not let you go! I won't!"

His other hand snaked out to grab her free hand, and she immediately kicked at him. It was like kicking a brick wall, and he smoldered under the contact, but he did not falter to her dismay.

"What do you want with me?!" May's voice cracked, and she felt so tired. So very tired. But the stranger did not reply. Fire swept up from the earth, scorching both of them with its reaching flames. She winced, waiting for the pain to overtake her.

When she opened her eyes, it was the tops of trees she saw and the gentle breeze she felt. _A dream. It was just a stupid dream. _Relief flooded through her, and May shakily sat up. She hadn't had a nightmare in years, this really caught her off guard. Nudging Felisha awake, she called the small Pokemon back into her Pokeball, and quickly stalked out of the forest.

She'd slept way longer than she should have and cursed under her breath, the red light of sunset filtered through the trees. In the quickly fading light, the forest and its inhabitants didn't look so friendly. Jumping at every sound, she rushed to her bike. _Why am I so jumpy?!_

Irritated with herself for being spooked by a silly dream, she forced herself to not race back home and get herself killed by a car for paying more attention to going fast than the road. The brunette's legs itched to move faster, but she forced herself to stay calm.

Sliding her bike against the front of her house, just relieved to be home, May stepped inside. Her mom was in the kitchen, she heard the gentle hum of the bread machine. On the way to her room, she flicked on a lamp here, a hall light there. Darkness wasn't desired right now, and when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she practically ran to her room.

Panting, she released Felisha and kicked off her shoes. Her room was painted a deep scarlet by the light, and she knew she should be feeling safe. May exhaled, staring hard at the dramatic shadows cast from the window as if the man of smoke and flame would appear to her at any time.

_If that was just a dream, then why am I so scared?_

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im so hecking sorry about the late update, im going to try rlly hard to update regularly from now on and the storys officially off hiatus. ;v; i changed around a lot of my original ideas so now the story feels a lot more adult to write and honestly i have a better vibe about it. thank u all for the reviews and follows!


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